A consortium led by Grupo Televia SAB, with Megacable and Telefonica SA, will start offering dark fiber services in August this year.

Using the Commission Federal de Electricidad's fiber network, which was auctioned earlier this year, the companies will be able to offer an alternative to the previous monopoly held by Mexico telecom Telmex.

The Mexican government said it is hoping that by auctioning its dark fiber lines, it will encourage competition in the telecommunications space, with lower latency connectivity available to Mexico's Pacific Coast, Gulf Coast and central Mexico through the 20,000km network.

In an article in El financier, the consortium said it will have completed all technical work on its dark fiber route by July, allowing it to be used for backhauling network traffic and selling new wholesale services to other service providers.

The consortium spent US$69.4m on the fiber lease and will spend a further US$111.7m upgrading the fiber infrastructure for future services.